Systems and methods for media summarization

ABSTRACT

A stream of ordered information, such as, for example, audio, video and/or text data, can be windowed and parameterized. A similarity between the parameterized and windowed stream of ordered information can be determined, and a probabilistic decomposition or probabilistic matrix factorization, such as non-negative matrix factorization, can be applied to the similarity matrix. The component matrices resulting from the decomposition indicate major components or segments of the ordered information. Excerpts can then be extracted from the stream of ordered information based on the component matrices to generate a summary of the stream of ordered information.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of Invention

This invention relates to systems and methods for generating summariesof media stream that are representative of the structural character ofthe entire steam.

2. Description of Related Art

Media summarization technologies have numerous applications ine-commerce and information retrieval. Many such applications usesummaries and/or proxies of longer works, because of the large filesizes and high bandwidth requirements of multi media data. The summaryof the media work is reduced in some manner, typically by excerpting asegment or segments that are a good representation of the longer work.To identify segments that are a good representation of the longer work,the structure of the media stream must be determined.

U.S. Published patent application 2003/0048946, which is incorporatedherein by reference in its entirety, discloses a method for assessingstructure in media streams that includes three steps. In a first step,each window, which is either a single frame, or a short time unit, ofthe media stream, is parameterized by calculating a feature vector forthat window. In a second step, a similarity measure is determined forevery pair of windows based on the windows feature vectors. Thesimilarity measures are embedded in a similarity matrix for analysis. Ina third step, the similarity matrix is factored using Singular ValueDecomposition (SVD) to determine the major structural elements of themedia stream. The major structural elements or basis vectors areprocessed to determine segment boundaries and clusters of similarsegments.

Once the major structural segments and the clusters of structuralsegments are identified, a single excerpt can be identified to representeach structural segment cluster by maximizing, for each excerpt, thatexcerpt's similarity to other members of the corresponding segmentcluster. An excerpt for each significantly different segment of themedia is generated, while redundant excerpts for similar structuralsegments in the same cluster are eliminated.

U.S. Published patent application 2003/0161396, which is incorporatedherein by reference in its entirety, discloses a method for selecting asummary excerpt of a longer media source using similarity analysis. Inthat method, the similarity matrix is generated as outlined above in thefirst two steps of the incorporated 946 published application. Thesimilarity matrix is then processed to determine the excerpt withmaximal similarity to the entire source stream.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The singular basis vectors generated when using the singular valuedecomposition method of the 946 published patent application provide alow-dimensional set of orthonormal directions that express the essentialmodes of variation in the data. However, the singular valuedecomposition method has shortcomings. From an analysis standpoint,identifying the singular basis vectors is not deterministic andidentifying the correct structural segments is not reliable.

This invention provides systems and methods that use probabilisticfactorization of the similarity matrix to identify the basis vectors ofthe similarity matrix.

This invention separately provides systems and methods that usenon-negative matrix factorization of the similarity matrix to identifythe basis vectors of the similarity matrix.

This invention separately provides systems and methods that determinethe optimal length of summaries representing each major structuralelement or segment cluster of a media stream.

This invention separately provides systems and methods that determinethe starting point of summaries representing each major structuralelement or segment cluster of a media stream.

This invention separately provides systems and methods that generatesummaries representing a multi-modal media stream.

In various exemplary embodiments of systems and methods according tothis invention, a media stream is parameterized by calculating a featurevector for all of the windows or frames in the media stream. Asimilarity measure is determined for each possible pair of windows orframes. The similarity measures are then collected into a similaritymatrix. The similarity matrix is then factored using one or moreprobabilistic methods to identify each major structural component orbasis vector of the media stream and to generate, for each component, acomponent matrix representing that component. The component matrix thatrepresents a particular major structural element or basis vector isprocessed to determine segment boundaries and clusters of similarsegments.

In various exemplary embodiments, systems and methods according to thisinvention generate a summary containing excerpts from each identifiedmajor structural element. The excerpts are extracted or otherwisegenerated by determining an optimal or appropriate length of eachexcerpt, then finding an optimal or appropriate starting point for eachexcerpt that tends to increase or maximize the similarity measurebetween the frames or windows in the excerpt and the frames or windowsin the major structural element that the excerpt represents.

In various exemplary embodiments, systems and methods according to thisinvention generate summaries from media streams containing a pluralityof modes. Summaries of multi-mode media streams are generated bycombining the similarity matrices generated from each mode, thenperforming probabilistic factorization on the combined matrix. Summariesare then generated from the matrix representing each major structuralelement or basis vector using the same method as used for a single modemedia stream.

These and other features and advantages of this invention are describedin, or are apparent from, the following detailed description of variousexemplary embodiments of systems and methods according to thisinvention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Various exemplary embodiments of systems and methods according to thisinvention will be described in detail, with reference to the followingfigures, wherein:

FIG. 1 illustrates a similarity matrix and its basis vectors or termsgenerated using singular value decomposition;

FIG. 2 is a set of graphs illustrating rowsums of the similarity scoresof the similarity matrix and the basis vectors or terms generated usingsingular value decomposition;

FIG. 3 illustrates a similarity matrix and its basis vectors or termsgenerated using non-negative matrix factorization according to thisinvention;

FIG. 4 is a set of graphs illustrating the similarity scores forsummaries of the similarity matrix and the basis vectors or termsgenerated using non-negative matrix factorization;

FIG. 5 illustrates a media interval over which a summary similarityscore is determined according to this invention;

FIG. 6 is a flowchart outlining one exemplary embodiment of a method forgenerating summaries of a media steam according to this invention;

FIG. 7 is a flowchart outlining in greater detail one exemplaryembodiment of a method for generating the excerpts for each basis vectoror significant structural component of a media stream according to thisinvention; and

FIG. 8 is a block diagram of one exemplary embodiment of a mediasummarizing system according to this invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS

Various exemplary embodiments of systems and methods for summarizing amedia stream according to this invention are usable to summarize anyknown or later-developed type of media stream, such as, for example,video streams, audio streams, audio/video streams, text documents, andthe like. The following detailed discussion may refer to specific typesof media streams, such as video streams or audio streams, at variouspoints for familiarity and ease of understanding. This should not beunderstood to imply that only those types of media streams areappropriately used in systems and methods according to this invention.

One exemplary application for the media summarization systems andmethods according to this invention is in summarizing a video streamthat is to be sold and distributed over the Internet. In this exemplaryapplication, a prospective Internet video purchaser reviews an audioand/or video work before deciding to purchase the work. The userrequests a summary of the work, which activates a summarizing systemaccording to this invention to generate the summary of the audio and/orvideo work. The summarizing system determines each of the majorcomponents in the video work and generates a summary based on samples ofthe determined major components

To avoid disclosing all of the work, such as, for example, a surpriseending of an audio and/or video work, the determined summary may reflectonly a percentage of the determined major components in the beginning,middle and/or end of the work. Since the summarizing system may be usedto determine boundaries of the major components, the length of eachdetermined major component may be determined and only an appropriateportion of the total length of each component included in the summary.It should be apparent that, in various exemplary embodiments of systemsand methods according to this invention, summarizing an audio/video workincludes summarizing only the audio components, only the videocomponents and/or both of the audio and video components.

A user of an audio and/or video editing system may also use an exemplaryembodiment of summarizing systems and methods according to thisinvention to provide smart cut/paste functions and other enhancedediting capabilities based on the determined major component boundaries.For example, a user of the video editing system retrieves a video work.The video work is then summarized by the summarizing system to identifythe major components of the video work.

The determined major components of the video work are then used todetermine the boundaries of the major video components or segments. Thedetermined major component or segment boundaries are then be usedprovide smart cut and paste operations and/or other enhanced videooperations for the determined major components within the video work.The time and expertise required to accomplish the editing of the videowork are reduced since important components, such as major scenes of thevideo work, have been determined. It should be apparent that, in variousother exemplary embodiments of systems and methods according to thisinvention, the summarizing system may be located in the video editingsystem and/or any accessible location. In various exemplary embodiments,major components of audio, text or any other ordered information may besimilarly determined.

In various exemplary embodiments of systems and methods according tothis invention, the audio/video information may be encoded into astreaming audio/video protocol such as MPEG-3, MPEG-4, MPEG-J,PNM-RealNetworks protocol, RealVideo protocols from RealNetworks,Microsoft Media Streaming Protocol in the Windows Media® Player fromMicrosoft Corporation or any other known or later-developed audio and/orvideo protocol. Various exemplary embodiments of systems and methodsaccording to this invention also provide for operating upon MPEG-4 orany other encoded information to directly access the windowing andparameterizations encoded within the encoded information stream orprotocol without requiring separate decoding and encoding.

The ordered information may include audio, video, text or any otherinformation having an ordering dimension, such as time for audio and/orvideo information and position for text information.

The retrieved and/or received information is analyzed to determine anappropriate type of parameterization to be applied to the receivedand/or retrieved information. For example, different windowing andparameterization may be applied to audio information, video information,textual information or other types of ordered information. In a firstexemplary embodiment according to this invention, audio information,such as an audio waveform, is windowed into frames or the framesassociated with the video information accompanying the audio informationin the work are used as windows.

A parameterization of the windowed audio information is then determined.The windowed audio information may be parameterized using a Short TimeFrame Fourier Transform (STFT), a Fourier Transform, a Mel-FrequencyCepstral Coefficients analysis, a spectrogram, a Fast Fourier Transform(FFT), wavelet decomposition or any other known or later-developedanalysis technique without departing from the spirit and scope of thisinvention.

Similarly, other ordered information such as video and text informationmay also be windowed. For example, the video information may be windowedby selecting individual frames of video information and/or selectinggroups of frames, which are averaged together to determine an averagevalue. Text information may be windowed or framed by selecting words,sentences, paragraphs, an arbitrary number of words, by selecting wordsbased on attributes such as parts of speech, meta-data, XML and /or HTMLencoding, importance, term frequency and/or inverse document frequencyor any other known or later-developed technique for windowing the text.

A parameterization of the other windowed ordered information is thendetermined. For example, parameterizing the video information mayinclude use of color histograms, as disclosed in Zhang et al, “VideoParsing, Retrieval and Browsing: an Integrated and Content-BasedSolution” in Intelligent Multimedia Information Retrieval, AAA Press,MIT Pres, 1997, which is incorporated herein by reference in itsentirety. Alternatively, parameterized decimated video information maybe derived from DC coefficients of compression macroblocks, discretecosine transforms (DCT) may be applied to the video information, or anyother known or later-developed method of parameterization of the orderedinformation may be used.

The parameterized data may be compressed or otherwise reduced in size toreduce the memory storage requirements of the parameterized information.For example, the storage requirements may be reduced by any of themethods discussed in Girgensohn et al. “Video Classification UsingTransform Coefficients” in Proc ICASSP '99 Vol. 6 p. 3045-3048, Phoenix,Ariz., IEEE, 1999, which is incorporated herein by reference in itsentirety. Alternatively, truncation, principal component analysis,ordered discriminant analysis or any other known or later-developedmethod of data reduction may be used, either alone or in combination, tocreate a reduced representation of the parameterized information thatpreserves salient information about the original windows or frames. Forexample, the reduced representation of the parameterized audio/videoinformation can reflect a compact feature vector of reduced coefficientsfor each audio and/or video frame. Since the reduced representation isused for analysis rather than reproduction of the original orderedinformation, the reduced representation does not need to be able torecover the original information but is used to indicate majorcomponents. Thus, the reduced representation may be further reduced.

A similarity measure d may be determined based on the Euclidean distancebetween the parameterized information vectors a for frames or windows iand j, as:d_(E)(i,j)≡∥v_(i)−v_(j)∥.   (1a)

In various other exemplary embodiments, the similarity measure d may bedetermined based on the dot product of the parameterized informationvectors comprising the similarity matrix. For example, the dot productof two large similarity vectors is:d_(d)(i,j)≡v_(i)·v_(j).   (1b)

The similarity measure d may be determined using the cosine anglebetween parameterized information vectors, functions of vectorstatistics such as the Kullback-Leibler distance or any other known orlater-developed method of determining similarity of information vectorswithout departing from the spirit or scope of this invention. Thedistance measures or metrics d are incorporated into a similarity matrixsuch that the similarity measures or elements d(i,j) on the diagonalrepresents the similarity of each measure or element d to itself. Thus,self-similarity is at a maximum on the diagonal.

The value of each similarity measure or element d(i,j) can be assigned adetermined color information value based on comparison to a maximumfeature value such as a maximum brightness. Each of the similaritymeasures or elements d(i,j), i=j having high self-similarity havecorresponding higher brightness values and appear along the diagonal.

Thus, as outlined above, in the media summarization method described inthe 946 published patent application, the first step is parameterizationof the media. In the 946 published patent application, for a video datastream, the feature vectors are computed based on low-order discretecosine transform (DCT) coefficients. The individual RGB frames aresampled at 1 Hz and transformed into a color space where the three-colorchannels are approximately decorrelated. The discrete cosine transform(DCT) of each transformed channel is computed and a feature vector isformed by concatenating the resulting low frequency coefficients of thethree channels. It should be appreciated that any number of alternateparameterization methods may be employed.

Once the media has been parameterized, as outlined above, the secondstep described in the 946 published patent application is to calculatethe similarity between the feature vectors of different frames and embedthe result in a two-dimensional representation. The key is a measure dof the similarity between a pair of feature vectors v_(i) and v_(j)calculated from frames i and j. In various exemplary embodimentsaccording to this invention, a useful similarity distance measure is thecosine angle between the parameter vectors:d _(c)(v _(i) ,v _(j))=<v _(i) ,v _(j) >/∥v _(i) ∥ ∥v _(j) 81   (1c)This similarity distance measure d_(c)(v_(i),v_(j)) has the propertythat it yields a large similarity score even if the vectors are small inmagnitude.

FIG. 1 shows a similarity matrix S and a number of basis vectors orterms B_(k) generated using singular value decomposition. To considerthe similarity between all possible frames, the similarity distancemeasures are embedded into a similarity matrix 110 as shown in FIG. 1,such that each position S(i,j) in the similarity matrix 110 is definedas:S(i,j)=d _(c)(v _(i) ,v _(j))   (2)The x-axis of the similarity matrix 110 represents a frame i, while they-axis represents a frame j. The scale 111 correlates the similaritydistance measure d_(c)(v_(i),v_(j)) to a gray scale, such as white for amaximum score of 1.4 and black for a score of zero. The diagonalrepresenting i=j must have the maximum similarity distance measured_(c)(v_(i),v_(j)) score of 1.4 and is white.

In the similarity matrix 110 shown in FIG. 1, various media segments112, 114, 116 and 118 can be identified. In particular, in thesimilarity matrix 110, those positions S(i,j) where i and j are in thesame segment show a high similarity score. Additionally, in thesimilarity matrix 110, those positions S(i,j) where the frame i is inone segment, such as the segment 114, and the frame j is in anothersegment, such as the segment 118, can also show a high similarity score.This indicates that the segments 114 and 118 form a cluster and can betreated as a single basis vector or structural component of the mediacorresponding to the similarity matrix 110.

The third step of the media summarization method described in the 946published patent application, as outlined above, is matrix factoringusing singular value decomposition (SVD). In this step, new matrices orterms such as 120, 130 and 140 shown in FIG. 1 are generated thatrepresent the basis vectors or segment clusters B₁, B₂ and B₃ of themedia being summarized. Each position in the factorized matrices 120-140are defined as:B _(k)(i,j)=σ_(k) U(i,k)V(k,j),   (3a)where:

-   -   U(i,k) is an N×K matrix with orthonormal columns;    -   V(k,j) is a K×N matrix with orthogonal rows;    -   N is the number of frames;    -   K is the number of basis vectors;    -   k=1 to K; and $\begin{matrix}        {{{S \cong {U\quad\Sigma\quad V^{T}}} = {\sum\limits_{k = 1}^{K}B_{K}}},} & \left( {3b} \right)        \end{matrix}$        where Σ is a diagonal matrix with elements (i,i)=σ_(i).

It should be appreciated that, in various exemplary embodiments, thevalue of K is determined as the effective rank of S, based on thesingular values σ_(k) using an absolute threshold either applieddirectly to the singular values or applied to the ratio of the k^(th)singular value to the largest singular value. The value of K can also beset by the user, determined based on prior information and/or knowledgeabout the content of the ordered information that is being summarized.It should also be appreciated any other known or later-developedtechnique that is appropriate for determining the value of K can beused.

The K columns of the matrix U(i,k) are the basis vectors of thefactorization and the K rows of the matrix V(k,j) are the coefficientrepresentations of the columns of the similarity matrix 110 onto thisbasis. See M. Berry et al., “Using Linear Algebra for IntelligentInformation Retrieval” SIAM Review, 37(4):573-595, 1995, for furtherdetails on how σ_(k), U(i,k) and V(k,j) are determined.

The x-axis of the factorized matrices 120,130 and 140 shown in FIG. 1represents the frame i and the y-axis represents the frame j. The scale121 of the factorized matrix 120 correlates the position value B₁(i,j)to a gray scale, such as white for a maximum score of 1.0 and black fora score of 0.5. The factorized matrix 120 indicates high scores in theregions where i and j are both in the segment 114 or both in the segment118. The factorized matrix 120 also indicates high scores in regionswhere i is in the segment 114 and j is in the segment 118, identifyingthese segments as a basis vector or cluster.

The scale 131 of the factorized matrix 130 correlates the position valueB₂(i,j) to a gray scale, such as white for a maximum score of 0.4 andblack for a score of −0.4. The factorized matrix 130 indicates highscores in regions where i is in the segment 114 and j is in the segment118, identifying these segments as a basis vector or cluster. Thefactorized matrix 130 also indicates high scores in regions where i isin the segment 112 and j is in the segment 116, incorrectly identifyingthese segments as a basis vector or cluster. The scale 141 of thefactorized matrix 140 correlates the position value B₃(i,j) to a grayscale, such as white for a maximum score of 0.5 and black for a score of−0.5. The factorized matrix 140 indicates high scores in the regionswhere i and j are both in the segment 112 or both are in the segment116. The factorized matrix 140 also indicates negative scores in regionswhere i is in the segment 112 and j is in the segment 116, indicatingthat the segments 112 and 116 are not part of the same cluster.

FIG. 2 graphically illustrates rowsums of the similarity scores of thesimilarity matrix 110 and the basis vectors 120-140 generated usingsingular value decomposition. Each rowsum 210 of the similarity matrix110 is the sum of all the values S(i,j) in the i^(th) row of the matrix.The rowsums for each row i are then plotted as a function of i. Therowsums 210 of the similarity matrix 110 do not accurately identify allbasis vectors and clusters. The rowsums 220 of the factorized matrix 120are the sums of all the values B₁(i,j) in the i rows of the factorizedmatrix 120 plotted as a function of i. The values of the rowsums 220 forthe frames i in the segments 114 and 118 are significantly greater thanthat for the other frames, making it easy to identify the segments 114and 118 as the first basis vector cluster by analysis.

The rowsums 230 of the factorized matrix 130 are the sums of all thevalues B₂(i,j) in the i rows of the factorized matrix 130, plotted as afunction of i. The values of the rowsums 230 for the frames i in thesegments 112 and 116 are significantly greater than that of the otherframes, making it possible to mistakenly identify the segments 112 and116 as a basis vector cluster in analysis. The rowsums 240 of thefactorized matrix 140 are the sums of all the values B₃(i,j) in the irows of the factorized matrix 140, plotted as a function of i. Thevalues of the rowsums 240 for the frames i in the segments 112, 114, 116and 118 are extremely small and are not reliable for analysis.

FIG. 3 illustrates a similarity matrix S and a number of basis vectorsor terms A_(k) generated using non-negative matrix factorization (NMF)according to this invention. In the similarity matrix 310 shown in FIG.3, each position S(i,j) in the matrix is defined as:S(i,j)=exp(d _(c)(v _(i) ,v _(j))−1)   (4)where each similarity element (i,j) is defined using the exponentialvariant of Eq. (1c). The x-axis of the similarity matrix 310 representsa frame i and the y-axis represents a frame j. The scale 311 correlatesthe similarity distance measure S(i,j) to a gray scale, such as whitefor a maximum score of 1.4 and black for a score of zero. The diagonalrepresenting i=j must have the maximum similarity distance measureS(i,j) score of 1.4 and is white.

It should be appreciated that the non-negative factorization maximizes alog-likelihood function that assumes that the similarity data isgenerated according to a Poisson noise model. The maximization isperformed subject to non-negativity constraints. That is, thenon-negativity constraints imply that the resulting basis vectors arecombined to approximate the columns of S without canceling one another.The non-negative factorization of an N×N matrix S defines a linearapproximation to S, which is denoted as S_(b)=WH. Using an iterativeapproach, S_(b) converges to a local maximum of the function:$\begin{matrix}{{L_{NMF} = {{\sum\limits_{i,j}{{S\left( {i,j} \right)}\quad{\log\left( {S_{b}\left( {i,j} \right)} \right)}}} - {S_{b}\left( {i,j} \right)}}},{and}} & (5) \\{{S_{b} = {WH}};} & (6)\end{matrix}$where:

W is a N×K matrix whose columns are the basis vectors for thefactorization and;

H is as K×N matrix of coefficient representations of the columns of Sonto the basis vectors.

By determining the non-negative matrix factorization of the similaritymatrix S, each component matrix A, as defined below, represents acluster of segments with high similarity. These terms A of the matrixsum of Eq. 5 represent the structural components of the similaritymatrix S. In the singular value decomposition, the columns of W areorthonormal and the rows of H are orthogonal. As a result, whencombined, they both add and cancel. In contrast, the combinations of thenon-negative matrix factorization basis vectors and coefficients arestrictly additive.

In the similarity matrix 310 shown in FIG. 3, a number of media segments312, 314, 316 and 318 can be identified. Each segment 312, 314, 316 and318 corresponds to a square region along the main diagonal of thesimilarity matrix 310, in which those positions S(i,j) where the framesi and j are in the same segment show a high similarity score.Additionally, in the similarity matrix 310, those positions S(i,j) wherethe frame i is in one segment, such as the segment 314, and the frame jis in another segment, such as the segment 318, can also show a highsimilarity score. This indicates that the segments 314 and 318 form acluster and can be treated as a single basis vector or structuralelement of the source stream.

The similarity matrix 310 is then factored using non-negative matrixfactorization (NMF). In this step, new matrices 320, 330 and 340 aregenerated that represent the basis vectors A_(k) or segment clusters ofthe media. This factorization is used to generate the terms A_(k) thatrepresent a structural decomposition of S. A given factorized matrix320, 330 or 340, corresponding to the terms A₁, A₂ and A₃, respectively,is defined as:A _(k)(i,j)=W(i,k)H(k,j)   (7a)where:

-   -   W(i,k) is an N×K matrix;    -   H(k,j) is a K×N matrix;    -   N is the number of frames or separable portions of the stream        being summarized;    -   K is the number of basis vectors; and    -   k is an integer between 1 and K, inclusive; and $\begin{matrix}        {{S \cong {WH}} = {\sum\limits_{k = 1}^{K}{A_{k}.}}} & \left( {7b} \right)        \end{matrix}$

It should be appreciated that, in various exemplary embodiments, thevalue of K is determined by first estimating the effective rank K of S,and then by estimating the K-term of the probabilistic factorization ofS. The terms A₁, A₂, . . . A_(K) are then processed to determine thedesired, or ideally, optimal, length L summaries with respect towithin-class similarity, as is discussed in greater detail below.

The K columns of the matrix W(i,k) are the basis vectors of thefactorization and represent the significant parts of S, i.e., thesignificant block of high similarity. The K rows of the matrix H(k,j)are the coefficients representing the columns of the similarity matrix310 onto this basis. The factorization is performed subject tonon-negativity constraints that insure that the resulting basis vectorscan be combined to approximate the columns of the similarity matrix 310without canceling one another. D. Lee et al., “Learning the parts ofobjects by non-negative matrix factorization” Nature, 401:788-791, 1999,which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, provides forfurther details on how the matrices W(i,k) and H(k,j) are determined.

It should be appreciated that probabilistic clustering (PC), asdescribed in T. Hoffman, “The Cluster-Abstraction Model: UnsupervisedLearning of Topic Hierarchies from Text Data,” Proc. IJCAI, 1999, can beused instead of the non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) to factorizethe similarity matrix 310. It should also be appreciated thatprobabilistic latent semantic analysis (PLSA), as described in T.Hoffman, “Unsupervised Learning by Probabilistic Latent SemanticAnalysis,” Machine Learning 42: 177-96, 2001, can be used instead of thenon-negative matrix factorization (NMF) to factorize the similaritymatrix 310. In general, in systems and methods according to thisinvention, any other known or later-developed probabilisticdecomposition or probabilistic matrix factorization can be used tofactor the similarity matrix.

The x-axis of the factorized matrices 320,330 and 440 shown in FIG. 3represents the frame i and the y-axis represents the frame j. The scales321, 331 and 341 of the factorized matrices 320, 330 and 340,respectively correlate the position value A_(k)(i,j) to a gray scale,such as white for a maximum score of 1.2 and black for a score of 0. Thefactorized matrix 320 indicates high scores in the regions where theframes i and j are both in the segment 314 or are both in the segment318. The factorized matrix 320 also indicates high scores in regionswhere the frame i is in the segment 314 and the frame j is in segment318 correctly identifying the segments 314 and 318 together as a firstbasis vector or cluster.

The factorized matrix 330 indicates high scores in the regions where theframes i and j are both in the segment 312, identifying the segment 312as a second basis vector. The factorized matrix 340 indicates highscores in the regions where the frames i and j are both in the segment316, identifying the segment 316 as a third basis vector.

FIG. 4 graphically illustrates rowsums of the similarity scores of thesimilarity matrix S and the basis vectors or terms A_(k) generated usingnon-negative matrix factorization (NMF). It should be appreciated that,in FIG. 4, each similarity rowsum 410 is determined as: $\begin{matrix}{{\overset{\_}{S}(i)} = {\sum\limits_{j = 1}^{N}{{S\left( {i,j} \right)}.}}} & \left( {7c} \right)\end{matrix}$Each similarity rowsum 410 of the similarity matrix 310 is the sum ofall the values S(i,j) in the i row of the similarity matrix 310, plottedas a function of i. We also compute rowsums for each of the matricesA_(k) according to $\begin{matrix}{{{\overset{\_}{A}}_{k}(i)} = {\sum\limits_{j = 1}^{N}{{A_{k}\left( {i,j} \right)}.}}} & \left( {7d} \right)\end{matrix}$The rowsums 410 do not accurately identify all basis vectors andclusters of the similarity matrix 300. The rowsums 420 of the factorizedmatrix 320 are the sums of all the values A₁(i,j) in the i rows of thefactorized matrix 320, plotted as a function of i. The values of therowsums 420 of the factorized matrix 320 for the frames i in thesegments 314 and 318 are significantly greater than that of the otherframes, making it easy to identify the segments 314 and 318 as a firstbasis vector cluster by analysis.

The rowsums 430 of the factorized matrix 330 are the sums of all thevalues A₂(i,j) in the i rows of the factorized matrix 330, plotted as afunction of i. The values of the rowsums 430 of the factorized matrix330 for the frames i in the segment 312 are significantly greater thanthat of the other frames, making it easy to identify the segment 312 asa second basis vector cluster by analysis. The rowsums 440 of thefactorized matrix 340 are the sums of all the values A₃(i,j) in the irows of the factorized matrix 340, plotted as a function of i. Thevalues of the rowsums 440 of the factorized matrix 340 for the frames iin the segment 316 are significantly greater than that of the otherframes, again making it easy to identify the segment 316 as a thirdbasis vector cluster by analysis.

FIG. 5 shows one exemplary factorized component matrix A_(k). Thefactorized component matrices 320-340 can be used to determinerepresentative excerpts of a desired length L to be extracted from eachsegment cluster or basis vector of the media stream being summarized. Asshown in FIG. 5, a measure or score, of how representative a particularexcerpt is, is obtained by determining an average within-class (basisvector) component matrix {overscore (A)}_(k)(q,r) for a particularexcerpt, such as the excerpt 520. The values for the component matrixA_(k)(i,j) are summed over the excerpt area 520 and divided by the sizeof the excerpt area 520. That is, {overscore (A)}_(k)(q,r) is determinedas: $\begin{matrix}{{{\overset{\_}{A}}_{k}\left( {q,r} \right)} = {\frac{1}{N\left( {r - q} \right)}\quad{\sum\limits_{m = q}^{r}{\sum\limits_{n = 1}^{N}{A_{k}\left( {m,n} \right)}}}}} & (8)\end{matrix}$where:

-   -   r is the ending frame of the excerpt; and    -   q is the starting frame of the excerpt.

The average within-class(basis vector) component matrix {overscore(A)}_(k)(q,r) is determined for excerpts with all possible startingpoints r, and possibly for all desired lengths L. The excerpt that hasthe starting point, and possibly the length, that results in the highestaverage within-class(basis vector) component matrix {overscore(A)}_(k)(q,r) is selected as the optimal or desired excerpt for thatbasis vector. The process is then repeated for each basis vector.

It should be appreciated that each component matrix A_(k) quantifies thewithin-class similarity since each component matrix A_(k) representsthat part of the similarity matrix corresponding to the segment clusterthat the selected excerpt must represent in the final summary. It shouldbe appreciated that, in various exemplary embodiments of systems andmethods according to this invention, to select the summary excerpt for agiven component matrix A_(k), a score Q_(L) ^((k))(i) for the i^(th)starting position of the k^(th) component is defined as: $\begin{matrix}{{Q_{L}^{(k)}(i)} = {\frac{1}{NL}{\sum\limits_{m = i}^{i + L}{\sum\limits_{n = 1}^{N}{A_{k}\left( {m,n} \right)}}}}} & (9)\end{matrix}$

The rowsums corresponding to the inner sums of Eq. (7) are shown in FIG.4. It should be appreciated that, in various exemplary embodiments ofsystems and methods according to this invention, a starting point q_(L)^((k)) for the excerpt to be extracted from the k^(th) component isdetermined. In various exemplary embodiments, the starting point q_(L)^((k)) is that point that maximizes the score Q_(L) ^((k)) for thek^(th) component. That is: $\begin{matrix}{q_{L}^{(k)} = {\underset{1 \leq i \leq {N - L}}{ArgMax}\left( {Q_{L}^{(k)}(i)} \right.}} & (10)\end{matrix}$

The excerpt for the k^(th) component matrix A_(k) is then the excerpt ofthe k^(th) segment of the media stream being summarized that extendsbetween a start point or time q_(L) ^((k)) and an end point or timeq_(L) ^((k))+L. In various exemplary embodiments of systems and methodsaccording to this invention, the summary is then combined or compiled byconcatenating the k excerpts obtained from the k segments.

It should be appreciated that, in various exemplary embodiments, thelength L, rather than being a fixed value, can vary according to animportance attached to the component that the excerpt is a part of. Forexample, in various exemplary embodiments the desired total length L_(T)of the summary can be defined. Then, the lengths l_(k) of the variouscomponents K are determined so that the lengths l_(k) sum to the totallengths L_(T) and the length l_(k) of each component k is related insome way to an importance of that component k. In various exemplaryembodiments, the length l_(k) of a given component k is: $\begin{matrix}{l_{k} = {L_{T}\frac{\sum\limits_{i,j}{A_{k}\left( {i,j} \right)}}{\sum\limits_{k}{\sum\limits_{i,j}{A_{k}\left( {i,j} \right)}}}}} & (11)\end{matrix}$That is, in such exemplary embodiments, the total length L_(T) of thesummary is fixed, and a portion of that total length L_(T) isdistributed to each component k based on that component k's averagesimilarity relative to the sum of the average similarities for all ofthe components K. It should be appreciated that the total length L_(T)can be distributed to the various components k based on any appropriateknown or later-developed distribution scheme.

It should also be appreciated that, in the exemplary embodimentsoutlined above, minimal assumptions about the characteristics of thestream of ordered information were made. However, in various exemplaryembodiments, it may be appropriate to base the decomposition of thestream of ordered information on one or more such characteristics. Invarious exemplary embodiments, this can be accomplished by applying aweighting function to emphasize specific portions or parts of the streamof ordered information. In such exemplary embodiments, a weighted scoreS_(w) can be generated by altering Eq. (7c) as: $\begin{matrix}{{{\overset{\_}{S}}_{w}\left( {q,r} \right)} = {{1/{N\left( {r - q} \right)}}\quad{\sum\limits_{m = q}^{r}{\sum\limits_{n = 1}^{N}{{w(n)}{{S\left( {m,n} \right)}.}}}}}} & (12)\end{matrix}$

When using non-negative matrix factorization (NMF), multi-mode media,such as a multimedia stream that contains both video and audio portions,can be summarized similarly. In such exemplary embodiments, a similaritymatrix for each mode is generated portions and combined as:S _(c)(i,j)=[S _(a)(i,j)S _(v)(i,j)],   (13)where:

-   -   S_(c)(i,j) is a combined N×2N similarity matrix;    -   S_(a)(i,j) is an N×N audio similarity matrix; and    -   S_(v)(i,j) is an N×N video matrix.

Then, a joint likelihood model for the clustering can be created as:$\begin{matrix}{{L_{NMF} = {{\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{N}{\sum\limits_{j = 1}^{2N}{{S_{C}\left( {i,j} \right)}\quad{\log\left( {S_{b}\left( {i,j} \right)} \right)}}}} - {S_{b}\left( {i,j} \right)}}},{and}} & (14) \\{{S_{b} = {WH}};} & (15)\end{matrix}$where:

-   -   W is a N×K matrix whose columns are the basis vectors for the        factorization and;    -   H is as K×2N matrix of encodings of the columns of S_(C) onto        the basis vectors.

It should be appreciated that this is a straightforward extension of Eq.5. The above-outlined summarization process can be applied to the largermatrix using an N×K matrix W and a K×2N matrix H to generate K differentN×2N factorization matrices A_(k).

FIG. 6 is a flowchart outlining one exemplary embodiment of a method forgenerating summaries of a media steam according to this invention. Asshown in FIG. 6, operation of the method begins in step S100, andcontinues to step S200, where the media stream is parameterized. Then,in step S300, a similarity measure is determined for each pair-wire setof frames in the media using Eq. (1c). Next, in step S400, a similaritymatrix S(i,j) is generated using Eq. (4). Operation then continues tostep S500.

In step S500, the similarity matrix S(i,j) is factored using one or moreprobabilistic techniques, such as, for example, a non-negative matrixfactorization (NMF) technique, to generate one or more factorizedmatrices. In this case, the similarity matrix S(i,j) is factored usingEq. (5). Next, in step S600, excerpts representing each basis vector ofthe media are identified using the resulting factorized matrix ormatrices. Then, in step S700, the identified excerpts are extracted fromthe media stream and collected into a summary of the media stream.Operation then continues to step S800, where operation of the methodends.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart outlining in greater detail one exemplaryembodiment of a method for identifying the excerpts for each basisvector or significant structural component of a media stream accordingto this invention. As shown in FIG. 7, operation of the method begins instep S600, and continues to step S610, where the first/next basis vectoris selected. Then, in step S620, the length of the summary to begenerated is determined. The length of the summary can be determined bya default parameter, by operator input and/or by adjusting a defaultlength based on the relative length or some other parameter of the basisvector. It should be appreciated that, in some exemplary embodiments,two or more lengths can be used, and/or the length can be determineddynamically as the excerpts are scored, so that each excerpt at a givenstarting point has a length that maximizes its score. Next, in stepS630, a representative score of each excerpt, corresponding to everypossible starting point, is generated using Eq. (6). Operation thencontinues to step S640.

In step 640, an optimal or desired starting point for the excerpt of theselected basis vector is determined by choosing the excerpt thatgenerated the highest score in step S630. Then, in step S650, adetermination is made whether excerpts have been generated for all basisvectors. If excerpts have not been generated for all basis vectors,operation returns to step S610. Otherwise, operation continues to stepS660, where operation returns to step S700.

FIG. 8 shows one exemplary embodiment of a media summarizing system 600usable to generate representative summaries of a media stream accordingto this invention. As shown in FIG. 8, the media summarizing system 600includes an input/output interface 610, a controller 620, a memory 630,a media stream parameterization circuit, routine or application 640, asimilarity matrix generating circuit, routine or application 650, asimilarity matrix factorizing circuit, routine or application 660, and amedia summary generating circuit, routine or application 670,interconnected by one or more control and/or data busses and/orapplication programming interfaces or the like 680. As shown in FIG. 8,a data source 700, and a data sink 800 are connected to the mediasummarizing system 600 by links 710 and 810, respectively.

In general, the data source 700 shown in FIG. 8 can be any known orlater-developed device that is capable of supplying a media stream to besummarized to the media summarizing system 600. In general, the datasource 700 can be any one of a number of different sources, such as ascanner, a digital copier, a facsimile device, a digital camera, adigital video recorder or the like that is suitable for generatingelectronic data as a media stream, or a device suitable for storingand/or transmitting electronic data as a media stream, such as a clientor server of a network, or the Internet, and especially the World WideWeb. In general, the data sink 800 can be any known or later-developeddevice that is usable to display, store, transmit or otherwise receivemedia summaries from the media summarizing system 600.

The data source 700 and/or the data sink 800 can be integrated with themedia summarizing system 600. In addition, the media summarizing system600 may be integrated with devices providing additional functions inaddition to the data source 700 and/or the data sink 800.

Each of the links 710 and 810 connecting the data source 700 and datasink 800, respectively, to the media summarizing system 600, can beand/or include a direct cable connection, a modem, a local area network,a wide area network, an intranet, an extranet, the Internet, the publicswitched telephone network, any other distributed processing network, orany other known or later developed connection device. It should beappreciated that each of the links 710 and 810 may include one or morewired and/or wireless portions. In general, each of the links 710 and810 can be of any known or later-developed connection system orstructure usable to connect the respective devices to the mediasummarizing system 600. It should be understood that the links 710 and810 do not need to be of the same type.

As shown in FIG. 8, the memory 630 can be implemented using anyappropriate combination of alterable, volatile, or non-volatile memoryor non-alterable, or fixed memory. The alterable memory, whethervolatile or non-volatile can be implemented using any one or more ofstatic or dynamic RAM, a floppy disk and disk drive, a writeable orrewriteable optical disk and disk drive, a hard drive, flash memory orthe like. Similarly, the non-alterable or fixed memory can beimplemented using any one or more of ROM, PROM, EPROM, EEPROM, and gapsan optical ROM disk, such as a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM disk and disk drive orthe like.

It should be understood that various embodiments of the mediasummarizing system 600 can be implemented as software stored on acomputer readable medium that is executable on a programmed generalpurpose computer, a special purpose computer, a microprocessor or thelike. Such a computer readable medium includes using a carrier wave orthe like to provide the software instructions to a processing device. Itshould also be understood that each of the circuits, routines,applications, managers, procedures, objects or the like shown in FIG. 8can be implemented as portions of a suitably programmed general-purposecomputer. Alternatively, each of the circuits, routines, applications,managers, procedures, objects or the like shown in FIG. 8 can beimplemented as physically distinct hardware circuits within an ASIC,using a digital signal processor (DSP), using a FPGA, a PDL, a PLAand/or a PAL, or using discrete logic elements or discrete circuitelements. The particular form of the circuits, routines, applications,managers, procedures, objects or the like shown in FIG. 8 will take is adesign choice and will be obvious and predictable to those skilled inthe art. It should be appreciated that the circuits, routinesapplications, managers, procedures, objects or the like shown in FIG. 8do not need to be of the same design.

It should be appreciated that a routine, application, manager,procedure, object or the like can be a self-consistent sequence ofcomputerized steps that lead to a desired result. These steps can bedefined by and/or in one or more computer instructions stored in acomputer readable medium, which should be understood to encompass usinga memory, a carrier wave or the like to provide the softwareinstructions to a processing device. These steps can be performed by acomputer executing the instructions that define the steps. Thus, theterms “routine”, “application”, “manager”, “procedure”, and “object” canrefer to, for example, a sequence of instructions, a sequence ofinstructions organized within a programmed-procedure orprogrammed-function, and/or a sequence of instructions organized withinprogrammed processes executing in one or more computers. Such routines,applications, managers, procedures, objects or the like can also beimplemented directly in circuitry that performs the procedure. Further,computer-controlled methods can be performed by a computer executing oneor more appropriate programs, by special purpose hardware designed toperform the method, or any combination of such hardware, firmware andsoftware elements.

In operation, the media summarizing system 600 receives a media datastream from the data source 700 over the link 710. The input/outputinterface 610 inputs the received media data stream, and under thecontrol of the controller 620, forwards it to an input media streamportion 631 of the memory 630 and/or directly to the media streamparameterization circuit, routine or application 640. The media streamparameterization circuit, routine or application 640 then generatesfeature vectors for each frame of the received media stream. The mediastream parameterization circuit, routine or application 640 then stores,under control of the controller 620, the generated feature vectors in asimilarity parameter portion 632 of the memory 620 or forwards thegenerated feature vectors directly to similarity matrix generatingcircuit, routine or application 650.

The similarity matrix generating circuit, routine or application 650inputs, under control of the controller 620, feature vectors from thesimilarity parameter portion 632 of the memory 630 or the media streamparameterization circuit, routine or application 640. Using thegenerated feature vectors, the similarity matrix generating circuit,routine or application 650 determines a similarity distance for eachpair of frames and adds the determined similarity distances into asimilarity matrix. The similarity matrix generating circuit, routine orapplication 650 then stores, under control of the controller 620, thesimilarity matrix to a similarity matrix portion 633 of the memory 630,or outputs the similarity matrix directly to the similarity matrixfactorizing circuit, routine or application 660. It should beappreciated that the similarity matrix generating circuit, routine orapplication 650 can generate the similarity matrix using any appropriateknown or later-developed technique, including the various techniquesoutlined above.

The similarity matrix factorizing circuit, routine or application 660,inputs, under control of the controller 620, the similarity matrix fromthe similarity matrix portion 633 of the memory 630, or from thesimilarity matrix generating circuit, routine or application 640. Thesimilarity matrix factorizing circuit, routine or application 660generates a basis vector term for each basis vector or significantstructure or the media using a probabilistic matrix factorizationtechnique. The similarity matrix factorizing circuit, routine orapplication 660, under control of the controller 620, stores the basisvector terms in the basis vector term portion 634, of the memory 630, oroutputs the basis vector terms directly to the media summary generatingcircuit, routine or application 670. It should be appreciated that thesimilarity matrix factorizing circuit, routine or application 660 canfactorize the similarity matrix using any appropriate known orlater-developed probabilistic matrix factorization technique, includingthe various techniques outlined above.

The media summary generating circuit, routine or application 670,inputs, under control of the controller 620, the basis vector terms fromthe basis vector term portion 634 of the memory 630 or from thesimilarity matrix factorizing circuit, routine or application 660. Themedia summary generating circuit, routine or application 670 generates adesired media summary from the basis vector term for each basis vectoror significant structure or the media, by extracting a representativeexcerpt from each basis vector, and by combining the extracted excerptsinto a summary. The media summary generating circuit, routine orapplication 660 stores, under control of the controller 620, the mediasummary in the media summary portion 635 of the memory 630, or outputsthe media summary directly to the data sink 800, via the input/outputinterface 610, and over the link 810. It should be appreciated that themedia summary generating circuit, routine or application 670 cangenerate the media summary using any appropriate known orlater-developed technique, including the various techniques outlinedabove. In particular, the media summary generating circuit, routine orapplication 670 can use any appropriate known or later developedtechnique for determining the various representative excerpts, includingthe various techniques outlined above.

While this invention has been described in conjunction with theexemplary embodiments outlined above, various alternatives,modifications, variations, improvements, and/or substantial equivalents,whether known or that are or may be presently unforeseen, may becomeapparent. Accordingly, the exemplary embodiments of the invention, asset forth above, are intended to be illustrative, not limiting. Variouschanges may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of theinvention. Therefore, the invention is intended to embrace all known orlater-developed alternatives, modifications, variations, improvements,and/or equivalents.

1. A method of summarizing a stream of ordered information, comprising:generating a similarity matrix for the stream of ordered informationdecomposing the similarity matrix based on a probabilistic matrixfactorization into a plurality of component matrices; determining, foreach component matrix, a representative portion of the stream of orderedinformation; extracting the determined representative portions; andcombining the extracted representative portions into a summary of thestream of ordered information.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein thestream of ordered information comprises at least one of at least videoinformation, audio information, still image information, and textinformation.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the stream of orderedinformation comprises a plurality of at least video information, audioinformation, still image information, and text information
 4. The methodof claim 1, wherein generating the similarity matrix for the stream ofordered information comprises: windowing the stream of orderedinformation; parameterizing the windowed stream of ordered information;and determining the similarity matrix of the parameterized windowedstream of ordered information.
 5. The method of claim 4, wherein thestream of ordered information comprises at least audio information, andparameterizing the stream of ordered information comprisesparameterizing the stream of ordered audio information based on at leastone of a STFT Fourier Transform, a Mel-Frequency Cepstral CoefficientsAnalysis, a spectrogram, a Fast Fourier Transform and waveletdecomposition.
 6. The method of claim 4, wherein the stream of orderedinformation comprises at least video information, and parameterizing thestream of ordered information comprises parameterizing the stream ofordered video information based on at least one of a histogram,ortho-normal projections, deriving a decimated image from DCcoefficients of compression macroblocks and discrete cosine transforms.7. The method of claim 4, wherein the stream of ordered informationcomprises at least text information, and parameterizing the stream ofordered information comprises parameterizing the stream of ordered textinformation based on at least one of a sentence, a paragraph, ameta-data information, a term-frequency inverse-document frequencyinformation and part of speech information.
 8. The method of claim 1,further comprising determining a number of the component matrices of theordered information based on a function.
 9. The method of claim 8,wherein determining the number of the component matrices of the orderedinformation based on a function comprises determining the number of thecomponent matrices of the ordered information based on a probabilisticfactorization rank of the similarity matrix for the ordered information.10. The method of claim 1, wherein decomposing the similarity matrixbased on a probabilistic matrix factorization into the plurality ofcomponent matrices comprises decomposing a similarity matrix S into aplurality of component matrices A_(k) such that:${{S \cong {WH}} = {\sum\limits_{k = 1}^{K}A_{k}}},$ where: W(i,k) is anN×K matrix; H(k,j) is a K×N matrix; N is a number of separable portionsof the stream of ordered information; K is a number of basis vectors;and k is an integer.
 11. The method of claim 10, wherein determining,for each component matrix, a representative portion of the stream ofordered information comprises determining, for each component matrix,for each of a plurality of candidate excerpts from a subpart of thestream of ordered information that corresponds to that component matrix,a measure of how representative that candidate excerpt is.
 12. Themethod of claim 11, wherein determining the measure of howrepresentative that candidate excerpt is comprises determining anaverage within-class matrix {overscore (A)}_(k)(q,r) for that candidateexcerpt.
 13. The method of claim 12, wherein determining the averagewithin-class matrix {overscore (A)}_(k)(q,r) for that candidate excerptcomprises determining {overscore (A)}_(k)(q,r) as:${{{\overset{\_}{A}}_{k}\left( {q,r} \right)} = {\frac{1}{N\left( {r - q} \right)}\quad{\sum\limits_{m = q}^{r}{\sum\limits_{n = 1}^{N}{A_{k}\left( {m,n} \right)}}}}};$where: N is a number of separable portions of the corresponding subpartof the stream of ordered information; r is a ending portion of theexcerpt; and q is an starting portion of the excerpt.
 14. The method ofclaim 13, wherein determining, for the plurality of candidate excerptsfrom the subpart of the stream of ordered information that correspondsto that component matrix, a measure of how representative that candidateexcerpt is comprises determining the average within-class componentmatrix {overscore (A)}_(k)(q,r) for excerpts with all possible startingpoints r.
 15. The method of claim 14, wherein determining, for theplurality of candidate excerpts from the subpart of the stream ofordered information that corresponds to that component matrix, a measureof how representative that candidate excerpt is comprises determiningthe average within-class component matrix {overscore (A)}_(k)(q,r) forexcerpts with all possible starting points r, each excerpt having afixed length L between the starting point r and the ending point q. 16.The method of claim 14, wherein determining, for the plurality ofcandidate excerpts from the subpart of the stream of ordered informationthat corresponds to that component matrix, a measure of howrepresentative that candidate excerpt is comprises determining theaverage within-class component matrix {overscore (A)}_(k)(q,r) forexcerpts with all possible ending points q.
 17. The method of claim 14,wherein determining, for the plurality of candidate excerpts from thesubpart of the stream of ordered information that corresponds to thatcomponent matrix, a measure of how representative that candidate excerptis comprises determining the average within-class component matrix{overscore (A)}_(k)(q,r) for excerpts having a length l_(k) for thatcomponent k, where the length l_(k) is determined as:${l_{k} = {L_{T}\frac{\sum\limits_{i,j}{A_{k}\left( {i,j} \right)}}{\sum\limits_{k}{\sum\limits_{i,j}{A_{k}\left( {i,j} \right)}}}}},$where L_(T) is a total length for the combined excerpts.
 18. The methodof claim 11, wherein determining the measure of how representative thatcandidate excerpt is comprises determining, for a given component matrixA_(k), a score Q_(L) ^((k))(i) for the i^(th) starting position of thek^(th) component as:${{Q_{L}^{(k)}(i)} = {\frac{1}{NL}\quad{\sum\limits_{m = i}^{i + L}{\sum\limits_{n = 1}^{N}{A_{k}\left( {m,n} \right)}}}}},$where: N is a number of separable portions of the corresponding subpartof the stream of ordered information; i is a starting portion of theexcerpt; and L is a length of the excerpt.
 19. The method of claim 18,wherein determining the score Q_(L) ^((k))(i) for the i^(th) startingposition of the k^(th) component comprises determining a starting pointq_(L) ^((k)) for the excerpt to be extracted from the k^(th) component.20. The method of claim 19, wherein determining the a starting pointq_(L) ^((k)) for the excerpt to be extracted from the k^(th) componentcomprises finding the starting point q_(L) ^((k)) that maximizes thescore Q_(L) ^((k)) for the k^(th) component.
 21. The method of claim 1,wherein decomposing the similarity matrix based on a probabilisticmatrix factorization into the plurality of component matrices comprisesdecomposing the similarity matrix into the plurality of componentmatrices using non-negative matrix factorization.
 22. The method ofclaim 21, wherein decomposing the similarity matrix into the pluralityof component matrices using non-negative matrix factorization comprisesdecomposing a similarity matrix S into a plurality of component matricesA_(k) using non-negative factorization such that:A _(k)(i,j)=W(i,k)H(k,j), and${{S \cong {WH}} = {\sum\limits_{k = 1}^{K}A_{k}}},$ where: W(i,k) is anN×K matrix; H(k,j) is a K×N matrix; N is a number of separable portionsof the stream of ordered information; K is a number of basis vectors;and k is an integer.
 23. The method of claim 22, wherein generating thesimilarity matrix for the stream of ordered information comprisesgenerating the similarity matrix S such that:${L_{NMF} = {{\sum\limits_{i,j}{{S\left( {i,j} \right)}\quad{\log\left( {S_{b}\left( {i,j} \right)} \right)}}} - {S_{b}\left( {i,j} \right)}}},$S≅S_(b)=WH; where S_(b) is a linear approximation of the similaritymatrix S.
 24. The method of claim 23, wherein generating the similaritymatrix for the stream of ordered information further comprisesdetermining a similarity value S(i,j)for each position (i,j) in thesimilarity matrix S as:S(i,j)=exp(d _(c)(v _(i) , v _(j))−1). where: v_(i) and v_(j) areparameter vectors generated from the stream of ordered information fori^(th) and j^(th) portions of the stream of ordered information; andd_(c) is the cosine angle between the parameter vectors v_(i) and v_(j).25. A storage medium storing a set of program instructions executable ona data processing device and usable to summarize a stream of orderedinformation, the set of program instructions comprising: instructionsfor generating a similarity matrix for the stream of ordered informationinstructions for decomposing the similarity matrix based on aprobabilistic matrix factorization into a plurality of componentmatrices; instructions for determining, for each component matrix, arepresentative portion of the stream of ordered information;instructions for extracting the determined representative portions; andinstructions for combining the extracted representative portions into asummary of the stream of ordered information.
 26. The storage medium ofclaim 25, wherein the stream of ordered information comprises at leastone of at least video information, audio information, still imageinformation, and text information.
 27. The storage medium of claim 25,wherein the stream of ordered information comprises a plurality of atleast video information, audio information, still image information, andtext information
 28. The storage medium of claim 25, wherein generatingthe similarity matrix for the stream of ordered information comprises:instructions for windowing the stream of ordered information;instructions for parameterizing the windowed stream of orderedinformation; and instructions for determining the similarity matrix ofthe parameterized windowed stream of ordered information.
 29. Thestorage medium of claim 28, wherein the stream of ordered informationcomprises at least audio information, and the instructions forparameterizing the stream of ordered information comprise instructionsfor parameterizing the stream of ordered audio information based on atleast one of a STFT Fourier Transform, a Mel-Frequency CepstralCoefficients Analysis, a spectrogram, a Fast Fourier Transform andwavelet decomposition.
 30. The storage medium of claim 28, wherein thestream of ordered information comprises at least video information, andthe instructions for parameterizing the stream of ordered informationcomprise instructions for parameterizing the stream of ordered videoinformation based on at least one of a histogram, ortho-normalprojections, deriving a decimated image from DC coefficients ofcompression macroblocks and discrete cosine transforms.
 31. The storagemedium of claim 28, wherein the stream of ordered information comprisesat least text information, and the instructions for parameterizing thestream of ordered information comprise instructions for parameterizingthe stream of ordered text information based on at least one of asentence, a paragraph, a meta-data information, a term-frequencyinverse-document frequency information and part of speech information.32. The storage medium of claim 25, further comprising determining anumber of the component matrices of the ordered information based on afunction.
 33. The storage medium of claim 32, wherein the instructionsfor determining the number of the component matrices of the orderedinformation based on a function comprise instructions for determiningthe number of the component matrices of the ordered information based ona probabilistic factorization rank of the similarity matrix for theordered information.
 34. The storage medium of claim 25, wherein theinstructions for decomposing the similarity matrix based on aprobabilistic matrix factorization into the plurality of componentmatrices comprise instructions for decomposing a similarity matrix Sinto a plurality of component matrices A_(k) such that:A _(k)(i,j)=W(i,k)H(k,j), and${{S \cong {WH}} = {\sum\limits_{k = 1}^{K}A_{k}}},$ where: W(i,k) is anN×K matrix; H(k,j)is a K×N matrix; N is a number of separable portionsof the stream of ordered information; K is a number of basis vectors;and k is an integer.
 35. The storage medium of claim 34, wherein theinstructions for determining, for each component matrix, arepresentative portion of the stream of ordered information compriseinstructions for determining, for each component matrix, for each of aplurality of candidate excerpts from a subpart of the stream of orderedinformation that corresponds to that component matrix, a measure of howrepresentative that candidate excerpt is.
 36. The storage medium ofclaim 35, wherein the instructions for determining the measure of howrepresentative that candidate excerpt is comprise instructions fordetermining an average within-class matrix {overscore (A)}_(k)(q,r) forthat candidate excerpt.
 37. The storage medium of claim 36, wherein theinstructions for determining the average within-class matrix {overscore(A)}_(k)(q,r) for that candidate excerpt comprise instructions fordetermining {overscore (A)}_(k)(q,r) as:${{A_{k}\left( {q,r} \right)} = {\frac{1}{N\left( {r - q} \right)}\quad{\sum\limits_{m = q}^{r}{\sum\limits_{n = 1}^{N}{A_{k}\left( {m,n} \right)}}}}};$where: N is a number of separable portions of the corresponding subpartof the stream of ordered information; r is a ending portion of theexcerpt; and q is an starting portion of the excerpt.
 38. The storagemedium of claim 37, wherein the instructions for determining, for theplurality of candidate excerpts from the subpart of the stream ofordered information that corresponds to that component matrix, a measureof how representative that candidate excerpt is comprise instructionsfor determining the average within-class component matrix {overscore(A)}_(k)(q,r) for excerpts with all possible starting points r.
 39. Thestorage medium of claim 38, wherein the instructions for determining,for the plurality of candidate excerpts from the subpart of the streamof ordered information that corresponds to that component matrix, ameasure of how representative that candidate excerpt is compriseinstructions for determining the average within-class component matrix{overscore (A)}_(k)(q,r) for excerpts with all possible starting pointsr, each excerpt having a fixed length L between the starting point r andthe ending point q.
 40. The storage medium of claim 39, wherein theinstructions for determining, for the plurality of candidate excerptsfrom the subpart of the stream of ordered information that correspondsto that component matrix, a measure of how representative that candidateexcerpt is comprise instructions for determining the averagewithin-class component matrix {overscore (A)}_(k)(q,r) for excerpts withall possible ending points q.
 41. The storage medium of claim 38,wherein the instructions for determining, for the plurality of candidateexcerpts from the subpart of the stream of ordered information thatcorresponds to that component matrix, a measure of how representativethat candidate excerpt is comprise instructions for determining theaverage within-class component matrix {overscore (A)}_(k)(q,r) forexcerpts having a length l_(k) for that component k, where the lengthl_(k) is determined as:${l_{k} = {L_{T}\frac{\sum\limits_{i,j}{A_{k}\left( {i,j} \right)}}{\sum\limits_{k}{\sum\limits_{i,j}{A_{k}\left( {i,j} \right)}}}}},$where L_(T) is a total length for the combined excerpts.
 42. The storagemedium of claim 35, wherein the instructions for determining the measureof how representative that candidate excerpt is comprise instructionsfor determining, for a given component matrix A_(k), a score Q_(L)^((k))(i) for the i^(th) starting position of the k^(th) component as:${{Q_{L}^{(k)}(i)} = {\frac{1}{NL}{\sum\limits_{m = i}^{i + L}\quad{\sum\limits_{n = i}^{N}{A_{k}\left( {m,n} \right)}}}}},$where: N is a number of separable portions of the corresponding subpartof the stream of ordered information; i is a starting portion of theexcerpt; and L is a length of the excerpt.
 43. The storage medium ofclaim 42, wherein the instructions for determining the score Q_(L)^((k))(i) for the i^(th) starting position of the k^(th) componentcomprise instructions for determining a starting point q_(L) ^((k)) forthe excerpt to be extracted from the k^(th) component.
 44. The storagemedium of claim 43, wherein the instructions for determining the astarting point q_(L) ^((k)) for the excerpt to be extracted from thek^(th) component comprise instructions for finding the starting pointq_(L) ^((k)) that maximizes the score Q_(L) ^((k)) for the k^(th)component.
 45. The storage medium of claim 25, wherein the instructionsfor decomposing the similarity matrix based on a probabilistic matrixfactorization into the plurality of component matrices compriseinstructions for decomposing the similarity matrix into the plurality ofcomponent matrices using non-negative matrix factorization.
 46. Thestorage medium of claim 45, wherein the instructions for decomposing thesimilarity matrix into the plurality of component matrices usingnon-negative matrix factorization comprise instructions for decomposinga similarity matrix S into a plurality of component matrices A_(k) usingnon-negative factorization such that:${{S \cong {WH}} = {\overset{K}{\sum\limits_{k = 1}}A_{k}}},$ where:W(i,k) is an N×K matrix; H(k,j) is a K×N matrix; N is a number ofseparable portions of the stream of ordered information; K is a numberof basis vectors; and k is an integer.
 47. The storage medium of claim46, wherein the instructions for generating the similarity matrix forthe stream of ordered information comprise instructions for generatingthe similarity matrix S such that:${L_{NMF} = {{\sum\limits_{i,j}{{S\left( {i,j} \right)}{\log\left( {S_{b}\left( {i,j} \right)} \right)}}} - {S_{b}\left( {i,j} \right)}}},$S=S_(b)=WH; where S_(b) is a linear approximation of the similaritymatrix S.
 48. The storage medium of claim 47, wherein the instructionsfor generating the similarity matrix for the stream of orderedinformation further comprise instructions for determining a similarityvalue S(i,j)for each position (i,j) in the similarity matrix S as:S(i,j)=exp(d _(c)(v _(i) ,v _(j))−1. where: v_(i) and v_(j) areparameter vectors generated from the stream of ordered information fori^(th) and j^(th) portions of the stream of ordered information; andd_(c) is the cosine angle between the parameter vectors v_(i) and v_(j).49. A stream of ordered information summarizing system, comprising asimilarity matrix determining circuit, routine or application thatdetermines a similarity between two portions of the stream of orderedinformation and that stores the determined similarity into a similaritymatrix; a probabilistic decomposition circuit, routine or applicationthat decomposes the similarity matrix into a plurality of componentmatrices based on a probabilistic matrix factorization; an excerptdetermining circuit, routine or application that determines, for eachcomponent matrix, a representative portion of the stream of orderedinformation; an excerpt extracting circuit, routine or application thatextracts the determined representative portions; and a summarygenerating circuit, routine or application that combines the extractedrepresentative portions into a summary of the stream of orderedinformation.
 50. The stream of ordered information summarizing system ofclaim 49, further comprising: a windowing circuit, routine orapplication that windows the stream of ordered information; and aparameterization circuit, routine or application that parameterizes thewindowed stream of ordered information; wherein the similarity matrixdetermining circuit, routine or application that determines thesimilarity between two portions of the windowed and parameterized streamof ordered information.